Qualcomm scores BREW win with Telecom Italia

Qualcomm has finally landed its long-pursued goal of landing a BREW customer in the GSM world of Europe, announcing today Telecom Italia Mobile will launch BREW-based games over its 3G network.

While Qualcomm has had some selling its user interface UiOne to O2, until now it had failed to convince operators to adopt the native application environment that powers the BREW content of carriers like Verizon Wireless and KDDI. TIM has agreed to launch two BREW-based UMTS handsets--both with Qualcomm Wideband CDMA chips--supporting advanced 3D games from publisher Gameloft. The handsets will also use UiOne, making them one of the first carriers to deploy Qualcomm’s entire vertically integrated solution from content delivery platform to application layer to user interface.

Qualcomm senior vice president and BREW general manager Bob Briggs said developers have been attracted to BREW because of its ability to support high-performance applications like 3D games, giving BREW carriers an advantage in getting new games to market faster than carriers backing J2ME. But since most of the BREW business has been in the U.S., developers have been launching those new games in the U.S., Briggs said. TIM’s support BREW gives it access to that content, and Briggs said he expects other carriers to embrace BREW for similar reasons. But Qualcomm also hopes to expand on its initial hold at the high-end of the carrier’s deck to expand down into even broader categories of content.

“We want to reach out to local developers, say to Italian developers that can write Italian applications for TIM,” Briggs said.